Job Discussion Forums

[DirtGuy]

Hi.

I was supposed to work in a summer camp in Taiwan in July but that fell through. While reading posts about the school, I came across something about summer camps for ESL in Thailand. The poster said these camps are in the February to April time period. Is that true??? This interests me as I am a landscape contractor by day and an ESL teacher at night. February and March are usually really slow times for me and I would love to get out of here for a couple of months.

Money is not my motivation for wanting to teach overseas. Experience and fun are what I seek. As long as I can make enough to live cheaply, I am quite happy.

Can anyone give me some info and maybe even some school names?

Thanks.

DirtGuy

[kenkannif]

Well they wouldn't be ESL camps in Thailand for starters!

A lot of schools have summer camps during late February, March and April, although I don't know of many that do three months straight.

My mate here runs a lot of camps:

http://www.thai-dragonfly.com/

[Sheep-Goats]

Usually camps are for one month, usually March or May, but sometimes April. If you sign up with a camp focused business, like Dragonfly in Ken's post above, I imagine it'd be possible to find three months of work.

Summer camps vary. Most that I hear about invovle you living in a non-aircon room in the jungle for a month or so while the kids tear ass around and jump into the river. Your job, as an English language specialist, will likely to be to help the Thai teachers get the kids out of the river.

Some schools in Bangkok have compulsory Summer Camp requirements for their fulltime teachers. Most of these schools, quite frankly, suck. This means that when summer camp time comes around a lot of teachers bail and find a better post. Which means the schools no longer have a white lifeguard for the kids. Which means there's some shorterm work.

In my opinion, I'd rather spend 3 months in Thailand living on my western savings (appx 3000USD plus airfare) than spend my holiday babysitting brats in 98 degree heat for eight hours a day. But surely there are better summer camp experiences out there than I'm describing, and I've never actually done one (the schools I worked for never required them), so this is all grumpy teacher office talk hearsay you're getting from me.

Oh, and BTW, what Ken means about "no ESL camps in Thailand" is that the correct term these days is "EFL." It's a touchy distinction and it's not valid in all countries, but essentially ESL camps are for non-native speakers in a native speaking country, while EFL camps are for non-native speakers in a non-native speaking country. Theorhetically, the skillsets you teach would vary, and, of course, the order of vocabulary sets would vary a good deal (eg: you'd push up the giving directions lesson and leave the talking about the world lesson until later in an ESL context).

[DirtGuy]

Sheep-Goats,

Thanks for clearing up the difference between ESL and EFL. I am so used to saying ESL that I don't think about anything else.

I would love to just work for a month in March if that is possible. Lets me "test the waters" and see what teaching in Asia is like. The scenario you describe really doesn't sound so bad except for the temperature. Just how hot is it over there? Is there ever a cool time of the year?

Thanks.

DirtGuy

[kenkannif]

To me it's always hot, sometime worse than others, but March/April is pretty much (generally) the hottest time of year!